1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the present invention relate to an apparatus and method for controlling the execution of mashup World Wide Web (Web) of things (WoT) service and, more particularly, to an apparatus and method that are capable of inquiring about, registering and executing a new service in which two or more WoT services are combined when executing available WoT service in a Web application service environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the wearable device market, the interest in IoT-related services and applications has gradually increased.
In particular, the IoT can provide a user with useful information services (for example, temperature, humidity, heart rate, location coordinate, distance information, etc.) or enables the remote control of things (for example, brightness and indoor temperature control, etc.) through the exchange of information between things each equipped with a communication function.
Service in which things provide service to a user while communicating with the user using conventional Web technology in an IoT environment is called Web-based IoT service or WoT service. In this case, to receive intelligent service from things, service mashup that generates a new service by combining basic WoT services provided by things and then executes a WoT service appropriate for the demand of a user is essential.
Conventional mashup (or Web mash-up) refers to developing a new Web service by combining various pieces of information and Web service APIs disclosed over the Web. For example, in the case of service mashup that inquires about outdoor temperature at a current location, it is possible to combine the current location information of a user with a Web-based temperature inquiry service provided by a meteorological observatory and then provide a target service to the user.
However, when a problem with a specific Web service API constituting a single mashup service occurs, the overall mashup service cannot be appropriately executed. In other words, in the forgoing mashup example, when a problem with a temperature inquiry service API that is provided to the meteorological observatory occurs, the overall mashup service cannot be executed.
Furthermore, there are cases where the conventional service mashup uses fragmentary user information, such as the location of a user, the time at which the user makes a request, etc., to call a Web service API. However, in this case, a service mashup method that takes into account the state of the provision of a Web service API, QoS, and a user's preference and personal features (age, gender, area, school, vocation, etc.) is not provided.
As a related technology, Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2010-0120905 discloses a technology in which a user can freely search and select ontology, can automatically combine semantic services based on the results of the searching and the selection, and can provide an interface via which a combined composite semantic service or a semantic workflow and the user interact with each other.